Augenblick

When I boarded a Portland-bound flight from San Francisco recently, I didn’t realize it would be the kind of flight I’d want to immortalize by writing about. It was the most enjoyable flight I remember being on. My eyes were blissfully glued onto whatever I saw outside the window.

It started with the cargo trailers meandering through the runway. There was something about the way the trailer snaked a couple of times in front of the aircraft door to get as many compartments as close to the plane as possible that was so… so… scientific. And so… so… hypnotic.

Then I looked up at the sky and saw something I’d never bothered to watch out for before. There were planes flying towards the runway to land. They all started out as tiny glimmers that I could hardly notice. At first, I thought they were sunspots. However, the glimmers became bigger and more pronounced. Eventually they morphed into planes and landed on the runway. For the next 30 minutes or so, I amused myself with spotting the glimmers right when they first appeared, and watching them become planes.

The plane took off and soon we were high enough to be able to have an aerial view of the mountainous part of Oakland and San Francisco. The variety in landscape was refreshing. There were the lush green parts of the mountains, the pink soft-rock areas, the solid ochre toned areas, and of course, the occasional snow capped summit. It was also amazing to see the settlement patterns in those remote mountainous areas. The dwellings were scattered in a manner that was both random and artistic when viewed from above. At times, I could have sworn that I saw Chinese letters being formed by the arrangement of the cottages. I have read about crop circles being engineered, but I didn’t think that this interesting arrangement had been engineered in any way.

Eventually, the plane wound around its route and embarked on its southern leg directly over the Pacific Ocean. It was like entering a new world. There were swirls of every shade of blue imaginable. I was thoroughly enjoying this delightful display of bluish tones.

Sunsets are always magical, but a dash of sunset colors on sparkly blue waters and majestic mountain ranges in the distance was pure bliss. I couldn’t tell where the horizon was, as the blue from the sea merged so seamlessly with the crimson skies with a beautiful blend of mauve in between. The twilight rays also gave the mountains in the distance some streaks of highlights that enhanced their beauty.

By the time we were ready to land in Oregon, it was nighttime. That meant a brilliant kaleidoscope of brightly colored city lights. Bolder in some areas and softer in others, Portland stood out like embellished artwork against the silky bareness of the surrounding sea and vacant highlands.

After the plane landed, the cargo trailers reappeared. This time, they were accompanied by people wielding colored light sticks.

Finally, the spectacular display of beauty was punctuated by the sight of a wispy crescent against a clear sky with a light dusting of stars.

Such a moving experience wouldn’t be complete if it didn’t lead me to muse about an abstract philosophical concept. This time, I ended up reflecting on heaven. I am sure that different people associate heaven with different things, but I associate heaven with beauty. To me, heaven is a beautiful place. Beauty is what distinguishes heaven from any other place. Not necessarily wealth or comfort. Just beauty. Wealth may or may not be part of the beauty of heaven, and comfort may or may not be a consequence of being in heaven. To me, however, beauty is the one thing that makes my mind “float” and enter a state I choose to define as heaven.

So what did this stunning display of beauty teach me about heaven? It taught me that I’ve been living in heaven all my life. At some point or other, I’ve been in that glimmer in the sky, or in that city by night. Why did I only enter the “heavenly” state of mind only when I was looking at beauty from a distance?

Maybe it doesn’t matter where heaven is, so long as I can find a place I can see heaven from. Would I recognize heaven if I were in it? Do I want to be in heaven, or do I simply want to be able to see it?

Not everyone sees heaven the same way, but this thought could extend to other tangible and intangible aspects of people’s own “heaven”. For example, would we recognize wealth if we weren’t able to step back and “see” wealth, say, on a tax form? What about comfort? Would we only recognize comfort only if we specifically sought it? All in all, would we take the time to notice the little things that surround us that make heaven a place on earth if we didn’t have something external drawing our attention to them?